Forget me Now
by Lightning-Dono
Summary: After Jack's trickery upon her, Nami leaves Forget-Me-Not Valley. 5 years later she returns with hopes that she can start anew and steal back the young man that she had loved long ago. [Ch. 4: Change in Plan]
1. Reminiscence: Part 1

**Lightning-Dono**: Yes, it's another fanfic! xD; To be continued upon the conclusion of Love Yourself. (Meaning I'll continue it once I'm done with Love Yourself. Or just when I feel like it. oO;) Told from Nami's point of view. This chapter is pretty much an introduction of what has happened before she moved away from Forget-Me-Not Valley and why she came back. (In more detail than the description, mind you.)

Forget me Now 

**By:** Lightning-Dono. DUH.

((Disclaimer)) Harvest Moon doesn't own me and I don't own Harvest Moon. If you think I do, then you are sadly mistaken and should read the logos on your products better.

-Description-

Nami left Forget-Me-Not Valley after Jack's sudden marriage with Celia, feeling betrayed and disliked by everyone who failed to interact with her. Five years later, she returns to the valley in hopes that everyone has forgotten about her and wishes to find a specific young man of years ago who had given up on her.

-----

My feet took me around the valley as though I had known it for years. I had, in fact, lived here previously...But in my false hope to gain the trust of a young man, I fell prey to his scheme. I could remember it in such vivid detail he would cringe just hearing it told.

It was a stormy day. Rain pounded endlessly down onto the cold, dull streets. Grass flourished in the loving embrace of life, nutrients flowing through their roots like water does in rivers. Trees shook off the raindrops as I walked underneath them, my hand dripping a crimson liquid that I was all too familiar with. The picturesque sight of my bleeding hand still lingers within my mind. After hours of working myself to exhaustion in the excavation site, my hand had gone raw and the skin had broken to seep blood.

The leaves on trees were turning a lovely shade of crisp yellow and flaring orange. I crossed the bridge, walking by Rock who was busy combing his hair through with his pudgy fingers, ambling towards the steep hill that marked the boundary of Forget-Me-Not Valley. Then I had the young man I sincerely loved in the field of my vision. He cast his line in, an entire package of bait sitting on the hook. I giggled, for Jack was such an amateur and amused me so with his silly antics. His gloved hand was drawn across his forehead, wiping off stray water that poured down from the sky. I hurried over to him, in hopes that he would present to me one item that I had been hoping to see for so long.

"Hi, Jack," I greeted him, wiping a lock of hair from my face to better my view.

His head turned slowly, like he was a broken robot in need of oiling. "Oh, hello, Nami." As soon as these words left his lips, the rain started to fall like there were angels up in the sky, dumping buckets of the satisfyingly cold liquid continuously. "I'm fishing."

Once again, the stupidity took over as he wildly jerked his fishing rod up and down, almost more in a playful manner than he had been before. The frown left his face as the fish came hurling out of the water, smacking him square in the face, and falling to a rest in his open arms. He surveyed the fish appraisingly.

"It's a Rainbob," he announced, tossing it into his rucksack.

"Ja-ack..."

"What?" Jack paused momentarily in thought. Then, "Oh...Yeah. Here." He fished around in his fathomless pocket to produce a Blue Feather, which he waved tauntingly in my face. "Do you want this?"

My opaque blue eyes snapped back to life. Had I been allowed to, I would've leapt forward and grabbed it from his sweaty hands. But to people who didn't really know how much I had been yearning for this moment, they all thought that I was a misanthropic wanderer with no specific goal but to dig random items out of some archaeology site.

"Well...Yes," I said sheepishly, calmly placing my hands into my pockets, shaking internally. _He just has to give me that...Nothing else will do. He promised that he'd marry me at the end of this year._

Jack fingered then soft tendrils of the feather, thinking about it slowly. "Are you sure?" He questioned uncertainly, apparently rethinking his decision.

"Of course you should!" I almost cried out frantically, almost falling to my knees just to beg him. I was tired of travelling, trying to find my place on this lonely planet. All I wanted to do was belong to someone and live with them until the end of my life came along. If I was accepting marriage, then why would he, the wielder of the key item to this joyous event, be pondering upon it?

"I'll give it to you tomorrow. I need to prepare the farm after all." He flashed that dazzling grin in my direction. Even though I returned the small smile, I felt like I was crumbling like a thin wafer. "I'll see you tomorrow!" The rain halted, clouds parting to make way for the sun.

I remember waving good-bye heartlessly to him, wandering back to my room on the second floor of the Inn.

Tomorrow never came.


	2. Reminiscence: Part 2

**Lightning-Dono**: This fanfic will be pretty fun. I might not update it as often as you'd like since I'll also be updating Love Yourself, but I'll try my hardest!

This chapter continues off the first one, just to show you how everything happened. And Celia bashing in this chapter is from Nami. I married Celia in AWL and I love her. :)

Answers to the Reviews

**BorderWolf** – Thanks! Yeah, the dark and stormy night feel does wonders, but it's so cliché...

**Krazie4Christ** – But all my fanfics are strange! xD; It was intentional. I mean, I want to make people read, not lose readers. And I love your profile, even though I'm Buddhist. :)

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I paced around the top floor of the hotel, unable to get to sleep. It was two o'clock in the morning, yet I hadn't gotten a wink of sleep all night and into the morning. Every so often I would stop by my desk and subconsciously flip open my violet diary, just to look at the hearts I had lovingly printed onto the page and assure myself that they were still there. After yesterday's events, I began to lose faith in Jack. Being shunned can only be survived through for so long before you start to recognize signs. Signs that someone would be leaving you soon. The usual cold chill crawled down my spine like a cube of ice stuck down my shirt. I still never understood what caused them, but I always developed these when something horrible would happen later on.

All I could hope for was that this time, nature's instincts were wrong.

Leaving the hotel was a real pain. Ruby cornered me as soon as I reached the end of the stairs, commenting upon the light bags beneath my opalescent eyes.

"Are you not getting enough sleep?" She asked, apparently highly concerned about the health of another guest at her inn. Why she cared so much I wouldn't know. It wasn't as though we ever communicated – just walked by each other like the shadows of two people slipping through silently.

Shrugging, I evaded her prying eyes and shuffled out of the door, the gravel that had been long since reduced to a fine dust shifting beneath my feet. The pleasant trill of birds pierced the air and beneath a tree, Murrey was worming his way into the Inn's food storage, hoping to scavenge something in the shadows.

I marched up to the plantation that resided not very far away from Jack's own farm, watching the leaves flutter down fondly. A raccoon was stealthily creeping around a Hackberry, as though ready to pounce and devour it. The windmill's shrill sound of harsh wind made cows moo nearby. As usual, I perched myself by their hefty growth of sweet potato, watching bugs wander aimlessly around the forest of vegetables, unable to determine which one to infest.

Vesta emerged happily from the second house facing west, arms swinging gaily by her sides as she approached the crops, revealing a watering can from the depths of her wide, brightly colored dress. She tipped it over a little, supporting its weight by keeping a hand beneath it. Water spilled from it, wetting the base of each sweet potato planet, smiling all the while. I watched her do this every morning and still I never ceased to come, just to watch those helpless little stubs grow into something more powerful, something that looked like it could have some authority over others. It was enrapturing to see the leaves grown greener, buds bloom, and seeing them plucked from the ground to be made into a tasty dish for human enjoyment.

Then, the girl who had been my rival for ages, exited her house, humming cheerily, hands behind her back as she stopped right next to me to observe their soon-to-be harvested plants. Celia was a rather coy girl with the air of a hard-working person about her. She rarely left the farm and when she did, it was either to visit the spring where she enjoyed watching the ripples in the water as fish swam by or admire the miniature door that the Harvest Sprites had constructed for their home.

"Good morning, Nami," Celia addressed pleasantly, still leaning over to giggle softly at the bugs crawling about, shining eyes bubbling over with mirth.

"Hi," I intoned stonily.

Celia stood up straight. "This is a happy day! Why aren't you festive?"

"What's there to be happy about?"

She seemed to be very thoughtful when approached with this question. Her eyes continued to reflect her bubbly attitude. At this moment, I felt like getting up and leaving right infront of her face, just to prove to her how much I never cared about her constant happiness. But I didn't, because I wasn't heartless. I knew how it was to be alone and it was bad enough just feeling it, but to inflict pain upon others that she knew you shouldn't have? I would be brooding upon it guiltily for life.

"There's tons of things to be happy about, but...I'm only happy about one thing today."

From behind me, I felt Vesta flash her a knowing look. I knew them both well enough to predict their every action without even turning to see. Spending mornings at a single place can do that to a person.

"Spill it."

Celia didn't seem unnerved by my rudeness. Instead, what I was saying to her seemed to be feeding her inner joy.

"Jack proposed to me today!" Celia bounced up and down happily on her heels, her arms jerking out from behind her back and clapping together lightly beneath her chin. "And I accepted! Isn't that sweet?"

I felt like I had been frozen in time in – my head and torso were in the past while the lower part of my body remained in the present. My heart skipped a beat and something activated my sweat glands.

"What?"

"Jack proposed to me! Isn't that great?"

I would've smiled, just out of kindness and to bottle emotions up like a usually did. I could've told her, "Congratulations" and walked off. But instead, my face became contorted with anger and spite and I began to cry.


	3. Return

**Lightning-Dono**: Here's the next chapter. And for all of you that celebrate Christmas (like me!), Merry Christmas! :D

Answers to the Reviews

**Forest** – Thanks for the compliment! Yes, poor Nami...I feel her pain and sorrow. I'm married to Celia though. The one girl with the limited dialogue.

**Guest** – Thank you! Hope you enjoy this chapter, also!

**Krazie4Christ** – Jack is a weirdo. o.o Okay, no, he's not, but he's just...Well, I guess he had multiple interests. He didn't give her the feather though. He just showed her it.

**Kirjava Deamon** – Thanks! I read your fanfics and they're good. o.o Don't really know what you mean because they _were_ in-character! Oh...I'll fix that sometime. xD;

-----

That was my past. My present was what seemed to be an impression of what could be better through a window frosted over with ice. Everything in my life was sugarcoated – love no matter how fake, the people around me, and how I tried to think of myself. I eagerly longed for the truth to come and tell me that life isn't really as great as others make it out to be. Or perhaps I was all too miserable to understand.

I was now in a new, prosperous city one hundred miles away from Forget-Me-Not Valley. I sorely hoped that it was far enough away for me to just rid myself of the feelings I had kept deep inside for so long. Maybe I would find a new man, a man who would stay by my side instead of betray me. Ever since I had arrived at Forget-Me-Not Valley, I felt like I had been running a constant race between my anguished feelings and other's pressure. They told me I had potential to be someone better, a person who didn't mope all day and hang around making nothing of herself.

But it had been five years now, just running and escaping from the people who had pretended to care for me. Now I was about to make my way back to the past.

I was boarding a legendary ferry that had been rumored to play host many of the prosperous mayor's honeymoons after divorcing and marrying at a rapid rate. It was to take me to a familiar spot called Po-Po Valley, which was a place that Murrey back at Forget-Me-Not Valley claimed his family lived. However, after checking all address lists, I have failed time and time again to find a family that even sounded like his. In a sense, I felt sorry for the poor young man. All he wanted to do was return to his family, stealthily creeping along and robbing people of their possessions to survive until he could. Murrey meant no harm, yet others inflicted harm upon him, stationing vicious animals at their doors to chase away someone who wouldn't steal if only you would generously give him the gold to live by. At times I would sneak him a few pieces of gold, to not seem as shallow as I acted. He would grunt, and thank me with such a heart-warming look that made me feel like such a privileged, rewarded person. Often, I would linger nearby, just to see if anyone had a heart like mine. No one bothered to cast an eye upon him as he lay their helplessly, his small tin can filled with an airy substance, my given gold at the bottom – barely making the mark. It just goes to show how awful the people really were while they acted as nice as one could be. Either that, or they were just blind, which I supposed would be a valid answer.

All in all, I felt like Murrey. Ignored and ridiculed.

- - - - -

Po-Po Valley was as hot as ever. The fresh smell of cow dung hit my nostrils like missiles aimed toward the senses. The hardened blue eyes searched the crowd for any familiar faces, but then I remembered that I wasn't even there yet. Forget-Me-Not Valley was miles away and I would have to spend another stinking day on a ferry that carried sweaty, bored and restless people.

As vigorous as I felt, I half-heartedly hiked up the steep hill that was strewn with upturned dirt from digging expeditions families in the valley often took to try and discover something. However, the hill remained looking like a prairie dog nest while the only thing that they had ever uncovered was the home of a swarm of very upset ants. I had only stayed a few days in that horrendous, poorly maintained town previously, yet I knew so much. Sometimes it paid to be silent and hear with your ears and not your mouth. I lived by the one saying I had made up. "Your mouth can get you into more trouble than your ears." My life had been wrecked because of that hole that gaped in my face whenever I opened it on rare occasions to reply to pestering people or to eat. If I hadn't ever confessed my undying flame of growing passion for Jack, maybe I wouldn't be hurt at all. He'd never know and I'd just feel the anger of not telling him earlier instead of the rejection that I often felt washing over me.

The next ferry was going to Forget-Me-Not Valley in an hour. As I slumped against the solid tree that sprouted boastfully from the hill, a speech was formulating in my mind. Something I could say to Jack to win back his heart and send Celia packing to her plantation next door. As far as brilliance went, I was the top of the list. If I would allow myself to speak out more, people would see me as a prospering psychological expert and not an anti-social redhead whose artistic ability surpassed others but didn't really have anything to say for herself. Therefore, I was pushed aside like Muffy did with the many men that she had killed the trust of back in the city in her days of being a secretary, slaving away at endless piles of paper work. But, unlike Celia, she didn't set her love interests on a taken man. She knew it when she first saw me padding proudly by Jack down the peaceful roads of the valley, arms hooked and often exchanging amused glances. But those days were over when my love had chosen a hard-working girl with no knowledge of the world outside of farming over myself.

Then, I knew exactly what I had to do.

This time, I wouldn't run away from them, the people who didn't bother to consider my feelings. Now I would get back at Jack for making the last five years of my life hell and steal him away from the girl who had seduced him into a lying puddle.


	4. Change in Plan

**Lightning-Dono**: This...begins Nami's dramatic return! x) Yes, it does. HAPPY NEW YEARS, the January of 2005!! I'm sorry it took so long to finish this one and I'm sorry that it's so awful. I'm suffering through a terrible bout of Writers Block that just won't go away...x.x If you haven't noticed are something, I spent these past four chapters just trying to give you all a look of how I made their personalities in this one, since Jack is kind of...well, you can customize him, basically.

Answers to the Reviews

**Kirjava Deamon** – Thank you! ((bow)) I feel so sorry for Murrey, though. ;.;

**Fullmetal Flutist** – I like your pen name. o.o I play flute, too. I don't think this is soon enough, though. I've been caught up in other events. xD;

**BrokenChains** – Thank you very much! Wow, that person must be so extremely egotistic. ((shame shame sign)) I don't really think this story is good because I don't have anything planned right now. Writers Block has returned to me, so I can't really produce pure brilliance. ((sigh))

**Khdude** – Yup! Celia is going to get it now! :D Thank you for your review! (I thank every review, but I really mean it.)

**Krazie4Christ** – If I put what she would do there then no one would read because I can't just say, "I have no clue what I'm going to do, though." and have swarms of readers stay interested. I mean...There's just no way. The problem is that I don't know what she's going to do.

**azn anime addict47** – Thank you! Hmm...I'm not used to elongating my chapters since I just stop whenever it seems like it should end. o.o I'll try on the next chapter, however.

**deeper** – I feel sorry for Celia because she has to live with a woman-cheating jerk. I'm just kidding. Thank you! (I should come up with a new phrase to replace 'Thanks' and 'Thank you'.) Arigatou!

-----

Forget-Me-Not Valley couldn't have been less different. Everyone had grown up, obviously, the Inn was in terrible condition (Most unfit for tourist visitation. Paint seemed to have worn off. However, it was evident that as hard as Tim had tried to conceal the ugliness, it didn't work. He had slathered paint onto part of the roof, which didn't look extremely attractive.), and buildings had popped up from out of no where. There was a young woman donning a light blue dress that highly contrasted with her darkening red eyes staring avidly at the well, almost entranced in it's depth.

Then a scene that made my blood boil silently within me popped into my field of vision. Celia and Jack were selling their items at Van's usual spot, hand in hand and welcoming people with flourish by pulling items from their pockets and holding them out to the people. Galen chuckled at the couple and walked on, refusing the Mist Moon Jack was shoving into his face, trying to draw attention to Celia and himself. It disgusted me to the very bottom of my churning stomach. Celia was giggling lightly into her hand, the other one containing a Sugar Ore. What did she have that I did not? Didn't I show my startlingly rare smiles to Jack, just so he could glimpse a part of me outside of the shadows?

I saw a few surprised glances, their eyes sticking onto me like glue as they walked by. No one whispered a, "Hello" or "Welcome back". Instead, they just watched me like I was a living TV. However, Jack noticed me as I walked by, his eyes magnets to my denim vest, watching me in brief horror. Deep inside, I would wish Celia could see his startled face – maybe she'll take the hint and think that he wanted me...not her. But I've never seen such a quietly stubborn person. She saw, she flipped her hair over her shoulder, and looked in the other direction like a statue of stone, intricately carved to look real.

The grass grew valiantly, enduring harsh weather conditions. Yet, I could make out each green tendril, lively and continuing life without disruption. But I was alarmingly annoyed when I noticed the horse footprints that dented the soft dirt, leaving the grass to wither dangerously, surrounded by mourning friends. I slithered by the trees, not making any means of being seen. I didn't need to be – being a nobody always meant that you were constantly surrounded by a shroud of invisibility, never to be revealed to anyone other than people who could see through it. So why did I have to bother trying to hide? It just gave me the thrill of adventure that I rarely had, seeing that my life was so unbearably dull and filled with the angst of tragedy. Tragedy that enjoyed to strike at horribly inconvenient moments, whether meant to be inflicted or not. I was certain Jack hadn't mean to break my heart in such a foul way, I suppose he didn't realize that I frequented by the plantation often.

At the same time, I mused, I couldn't blame Celia for breaking the news. She had no clue that I was romantically clinging to Jack. There was no point in accusing the innocent, because in the end you're risking losing someone that could've been a valuable friend. I stopped at the aluminum planks that surrounded the base of Cody's rambler, drowning in a wave of thought. I couldn't possibly harm Jack, however. What in the world would I gain from doing something so horrendously idiotic? If I did, they'd probably haul me off to court for mauling a successful farmer who was wedded to a lovely young lady. I felt like scraping the lovely young lady across the face with claws made out of iron, just to tear her vision away from my mind.

Cody approached me quickly, the sound of clanging reaching his ears. It would've made an excellent security system, if only his living space itself didn't look like it could be pushed over with one finger. It toddled back and forth, like a tremor from beneath the ground's surface was slowly pushing it upward in a shuddering motion. The man himself didn't look any different – he still carried the habit of hugging himself tightly whenever visions of vibrant canvas paintings flashed into his mind. He dreamed of things from another fantasy land that I had never even bothered to envision and longed to build up enough muscular power to haul his many sheets of metal outside to create something big. It would probably, knowing Cody, be a large futuristic building that existed outside the boundaries of the town that had seen nothing more than trees, grass, and wooden houses.

"Nami!" Cody roared, his voice a cross between a lion fighting for a mate and that of an aged male human. "Where have you been?"

I wished he would reach out his massive, bulky arms and wrap me in a hug, never letting go. But in fear that he would be seen to be more than the emotionless dreamer he was, he restrained the urge, binding it in tight ropes and never letting it break free. That's how I was, which was the reason why I knew how he felt so often. If only I wasn't quite so anti-social, I would be able to hug without remorse, cry without humiliation, and make close friends without keeping my distance so often.

"Hi." That word was the bane of my existence. I met people that dared to destroy my soul after I had spoken that word that resembled kindness to them.

Cody was brushing away a fly that had landed on his shining scalp. "Where have you been?" He repeated, not pushing, but just asking again.

I shrugged. "Around. Here and there." _More 'there' than 'here', though._

"Why?" Our conversations often grew tiring due to our lack of desire for socializing.

"Jack." What a dreadfully boring name, but it certainly fit the farmer. After I had thought I'd seen the most bizarre and sleep-inducing names, there he came along, clueless as ever with a name that would put even an insomniac such as I asleep.

"Hmm." That was his variation for, "What?" He never liked to overuse words.

"He cheated on me."

"Oh."

"He showed me the Blue Feather to me, I asked for it, he said he needed time to prepare and the next thing I know...He's made arrangements to marry Celia." I breathed deeply, feeling the betrayal flood me over.

Unfortunately, all the story did was make Cody become as mindlessly angry as a rabid dog.

"How could he!?" He fumed, his legs spaced an oddly large distance apart from each other. That was when I noticed the clenched fists and realized that he was in a fighting stance of his very own creation. You could almost see smoke streaming from his nostrils. "No one does that to my friend and gets away with it!" _Talk about un-original lines_, I thought silently. However, the idea made me imagine him and I marching up to Jack's farm, slamming open the door, and dragging him outside whilst wreaking destruction upon his lovely home.

Actually, it was a fairly reasonable thought. All I needed was Cody's cooperation throughout the entire process without him becoming a wild gorilla.

A few moments later, the idea seemed horribly frivolous. How could a nonentity like me break a man like Jack, who was the self-acclaimed 'Number One Farmer' and was so much more confident than I was? Once, he had even tried to oust Tim and Ruby of the Inn and take over it himself, writing himself a new title of 'Best Cook'. Even as much as he seemed like a talent-filled person, I couldn't help but feel sorry for his reality-deprived mind. If he hadn't bothered trying to make himself look a big super star, the respect would've been his. However, he was just like those big-screen dorkus units (A/N: Borrowed the term from my 6 grade teacher. xD;) dealing with life. They lived, swirling in a confusing vortex of misplaced passion, betrayal, and so many unmentionable sins. Jack was just unknowingly taking place in that.

His first step towards that was when he decided to mess with me by toying with my heart. His last step was once I shoved common sense and whatnot into his empty mind, forcing him to peruse those notes I had once spotted on his shelf and becoming the successful farmer he had wanted to be.

Although he had ruined my life, I wouldn't let him ruin his. No matter what he had done, I suddenly realized that revenge wasn't a reasonable thing to plan. Forget-Me-Not Valley already had a soulless, wandering shell and I believed deep inside that they didn't need another one.

"Cody, I don't think so," I said firmly, taking a pale hand and shoving down his dark one. For a second, our eyes mean and I pulled away. "It's...just not what I want."

The scarcely growing hair on his head looked as though it would droop and spill over his face in misery. "If you say so," he mumbled, disconcerted. "I'll go work on something." Instead of doing what he mentioned, he continued to brood, just standing there and casting a blasé look at the horizon. The sky was steadily fading into a blossom of rosy pink and yellow.


End file.
